This work originates from the lived experiences of Afghan women under totalitarian and religious discipline, focusing on how the body is forced into the shadows when the rights to act, speak, and be seen are stripped away. The body is no longer merely an individual presence; it becomes an object to be managed, shrouded, and silenced—learning to contract, concede, and remain still under systemic oversight and the gaze.
The work does not seek to reenact specific events or speak for the "other"; rather, through proximity to these conditions of oppression, it reflects upon one’s own position. Through physical states and movements, the work dwells between stasis, compression, and inner surges. The unspeakable fear, obedience, and resistance are often not from a single external force, but gradually shaped through prolonged regulation.
The recurring woven yarn becomes a soft yet tightening presence. It is neither entirely external nor simply a shackle; it is a state slowly generated and maintained within norms—from my hands, and from "his." This shroud* appears gentle, yet it continuously alters the relationship between the face, the gaze, and the body with the world. It is an internalized state of oppression, causing the body to unconsciously adjust its position and mode of action.
In observing the plight of Afghan women, the work realizes such shrouding is not in a distant "elsewhere," but permeates our lives to varying degrees. When faces, flesh, and voices vanish from sight, the body remains the sole vessel for experience. The work asks: in a state of being unseen and forbidden to see, can we, as women, still leave traces of being alive and preserve the possibility of resistance?